Following the recent announcement by the Obama administration of a new 'privacy bill of rights' for Americans, Commerce Secretary John Bryson and European Union Commissioner Viviane Reding met yesterday to create a 'defining moment for global personal data protection and privacy policy,' promising to work together for 'stronger trans-Atlantic cooperation.' Also in EU privacy news,Econsultancyreported that '82% of digital marketers think the EU cookie law is bad for the web.' This is an unsurprising yet significant statistic, especially following the recent announcement inBBC Newsthat 'the internet contributes to 8.3% of the UK economy.' Finally,Coca-Cola said the ePrivacy Directive will be its biggest regulatory challenge in 2012.
In domestic privacy news, Google found itself in government officials' crosshairs for the third week in a row.The Wall Street Journalreported on their growing legal troubles, mounting almost daily as more countries step into the ring. Also,Politicoran a very interesting article calling into question the meaning of 'Do Not Track' and how it was supposed to be implemented, and a greatNew York Timesarticle asked readers the question, 'How much would you pay for privacy?'

90% of AU net users want 'do not track'' The Register ' Australian Internet users are turned off by overly-intrusive personal data collection, according to a study conducted by Queensland University, and we want more information about how information is collected and used.

Google in New Privacy Probes' WSJ ' Regulators in the U.S. and European Union are investigating Google Inc. [GOOG -0.63%] for bypassing the privacy settings of millions of users of Apple Inc.'s [AAPL -0.68%] Safari Web browser, according to people familiar with the investigations. Google stopped the practice last month after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.What exactly does 'do not track' mean?' Politico ' 'Do Not Track'? Try, do not agree. A policy gulf still separates regulators, privacy advocates, online advertisers and tech companies over how much data industry should collect and use from consumers who say they don't want to be tracked online.

Microsoft Targets Health Ads Based On Consumers' Web Activity' MediaPost ' Microsoft has updated its privacy policy to specify that it serves health-related ads to users based on their Web activity, including whether they have visited sites with information about conditions like diabetes, cholesterol or osteoporosis.

What Would You Pay for Privacy?' NYT ' Not long ago, I sent a dozen friends an electronic invitation to a party. The invitation site offered me several choices, all entirely free: a range of attractive designs for events of various sorts, how many guests each of my guests could invite, whether the guest list would be public to other guests, and so on.